DoingTV

Drama
Doing TV Drama
EMC Media Guide
© English & Media Centre, 2009
 Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements
Written by Jenny Grahame
Edited by Lucy Webster
DVD produced by Michael Simons
Published by the English and Media Centre, 18 Compton Terrace, London, N1 2UN
www.englishandmedia.co.uk © 2009
Thanks to all those who have given permission for copyright material to be included in Doing TV Drama:
The Guardian for ‘Guilty Verdict on BBC’, Timothy Dutton QC, Chairman, Bar Council, Letters, 2nd July 2008,
‘Objection: BBC Drama is Unfair on Us, say Barristers’, Sam Jones, 3rd July 2008, ‘Captive Audience’, Erwin James,
26th June 2008; Spiked Online for ‘Skins: a Skinful of Stereotypes’, Emily Hill, 25th January 2007; David Brennan
and Thinkbox for ‘TV and Young People: Thinkbox Research Case Study’ and ‘The Secret Life of Students: Thinkbox
Research Interview’; The Independent for ‘Best of British: the Frocks and Fops We’ve Loved’, Helen Smith, 7th
November 2008; The Daily Telegraph for ‘The Naked Truth about Being Young’, Stephen Pile, 23rd January 2007; BBC
Post-Production Department for ‘Sound Case Study: Creating a Prison ‘Sound-Scape’ for Criminal Justice’ (http://
www.bbcresources.com/postproduction/london/sound_criminal_justice.html) and ‘Post-Production Colour-
grading for Criminal Justice’ (http://www.bbcresources.com/about/archive/080624_criminal_justice.html)
BBC for excerpts from Criminal Justice, Cutting It, EastEnders and Oliver Twist
Channel 4 and Company Pictures for Skins
World Productions for The Cops
We would like to thank Kate Harwood and Peter Moffat for giving so generously of their time. Many thanks also to
Nick Potamitis, Peter Fraser, Jason Mazzochi and Beth Levison for their advice and support.
We have made every effort to obtain permission to reproduce all copyrighted material. In the event of inadvertent
omissions, we would be happy to rectify the situation at the earliest opportunity.

Please note: websites referenced in the material were checked March 2009.

2 Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009

 Contents

Contents
Introduction 4

Reading TV Drama: An Unseen Extract 7

Contents 7
Teachers’ Notes 8
Activities 11
Resources 22

Issue-Based Drama: Criminal Justice 33

Contents and Teachers’ Notes 33
Activities 35
Resources 45

Youth Drama: Skins 51

Contents and Teachers’ Notes 51
Activities 53
Resources 70

Doing Soap: A Production Perspective 81

Contents and Teachers’ Notes 81
Activities on EastEnders 83
Resource A (EastEnders) 91
Activities on Brookside 92
Resources B and C (Brookside) 97

Classic Drama: The Literary Adaptation 99

Contents and Teachers’ Notes 99
Activities 102
Resources 114

Realist Drama: The Cops 129

Contents and Overview 129
Approaches 130

Glossary 135

Bibliography 139

Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009 3

 Introduction

Introduction
In common with the other two resources in this series, on Advertising and News, Doing TV
Drama is a collection of active classroom approaches and strategies clustered around drama
extracts exemplifying generic, contextual and institutional issues central to this much-loved
and engaging area of study.
Who Is It for?
• Students preparing for the ‘unseen’ textual analysis for AS level across all three
Media specifications, and particularly those heading for the OCR AS G322 paper
on TV Drama. We have included a number of group activities, models and sample
analyses which can be used post-analysis to help students evaluate their own
responses.
• With the accompanying activities, the texts provide structured opportunities
to develop the ‘reading’, analytic and study skills students will require when
tackling any unseen moving-image text, at GCSE or A level. The introductory
unit, ‘Reading TV Drama’, offers a step-by-step approach to this process, which
can be adapted to other ‘unseen’ activities. The units on ‘Criminal Justice’, ‘Classic
Drama’ and ‘Realist Drama’ include interviews with writers and producers providing
informal commentaries on our chosen extracts.
• In combination with other comparative TV drama texts of your own choice,
the extracts could form the starting point of a cross-platform case study in
broadcast fiction, a representational study, or the exploration of a number of
conceptual areas, from a focus on audiences, to ideas about postmodernity,
collective identity, or institutional practices. The unit on Skins illustrates one way of
using a case study approach at AS which could be built on synoptically to support
the critical perspectives required at A2.
• At GCSE level, each of these units could provide the core of a portfolio coursework
assignment covering media language, representation or audience.
• Students on Diploma and Nationals courses could start from the research and
production exercises offered in each unit, and use the insights gained from these
activities as a way into more critical approaches.

Extracts Out of Context

There are particular tensions for the study of TV drama, particularly where students are
required to approach an extract out of context. More than many other forms of broadcast TV,
the understanding of drama relies on acknowledging a wide range of contextual questions:
• Where does the text come from, and how does it relate to its longer narrative?
• What generic or media language conventions does it draw on, and how does it
relate to others of its genre?
• How is it shaped by its broadcast format, schedule slot, or platform?
• What production processes have been used in its construction and circulation?
• What functions does it serve for its audiences, and for its producers?

The big pedagogic dilemma for teachers of the OCR textual analysis paper in particular is
how to acknowledge these crucial questions without detracting from the evidence of the text
itself: there has been ongoing debate about how much background knowledge is required to
understand the techniques and conventions through which particular types of representation
are constructed in a decontextualised extract. The solution we have adopted is to select
extracts which cover a range of popular drama formats, to provide light-touch context and
support material, and to identify two or three issues or debates posed by each of our chosen
extracts. Thus, they can be used in isolation, as part of a wider study, or as the starting point for
more advanced A2 theoretical work.

4 Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009


Starting Points
As the field of TV drama is so broad and debates so complex, and the requirements of each
specification so varied, you will want to supplement the activities in Doing TV Drama with your
own material. The following suggestions for simple and economical ways into key areas may
be helpful:
Key Area, Debate or Issue
The breadth and diversity
of the genre.
Range of examples –
especially when students
claim not to watch TV.
Genre and sub-genre –
problematising the concept
of generic conventions,
change and hybridity.
Institutional contexts – not
required for unseen analysis,
but crucial for students’
understanding of the role
and function of TV drama
to broadcasters (see Units 3
and 4).
Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009
Introduction
Practical Starting Points
Card-Sort Game
Compile a list of all the TV drama titles available on Freeview
over a given week; put on cut-up-able cards.
In groups, students categorise them in as many different
ways as possible (e.g. by genre, schedule, broadcaster,
audience, country of origin etc). They may come up with 20+
– fertile ground for mapping the field.
Broadcast Ratings
Scrutinise position of TV drama in BARB ratings, presented
weekly in Broadcast magazine by network, channel, genre,
multichannel and audience share (you only need to buy one
copy of Broadcast once!).
Appointment to View
Negotiate a list of class preferences, timetabled over a
specific period, and make each student responsible for
researching, analysing and presenting a specific text ,
including selection of a representative 5-minute extract,
which the class can use as practice textual analysis where
relevant.
These could be blogged where appropriate.
Where possible, ensure technician or ICT department has
recorded each text for student loan.
The Tube Map Approach
In groups, students brainstorm every example – (past,
present, UK or international, series or serial etc) they can
think of around a particular TV drama genre – e.g. crime,
hospital, literary adaptation, etc.
They write titles on post-it notes, categorise, and then
attempt to organise them around the model of the London
Tube map, where each ‘line’ might represent a variant,
sub-genre, chronology, target audience or other form of
grouping – endless possibilities.
This is hard, but fun, and raises the issues. NB: it helps to
start with intersecting examples, which could represent the
mainline stations of the map. See notes in Unit 6: Realist
Drama for more detail.
Trailers, Titles, Promos and Websites – Multiplatform
Approaches
While lengthy whole-episode or series screenings may be
too time-consuming and diversionary (and are explicitly
not required by OCR G322), understanding of TV drama is
incomplete without exploring its significance in audience-
building across a variety of platforms.
5

Key Area, Debate or Issue
Institutional contexts
Developing analytic skills
– or, how to avoid death by
technical textual analysis.
Understanding impact of
production processes and
technologies (see Unit 4).
Spec-related study skills
(see Unit 1).
6 Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009
Introduction
Practical Starting Points
• Trailers and Title Sequences offer highly condensed
opportunities to practise analysis of technical aspects and
representations.
• Press previews, listings entries, press packs and production
company websites are readily accessible and offer light-
touch homework activities while developing independent
research skills.
• Both GCSE and AS specifications across all awarding bodies
require coverage of cross-media marketing and the potential
of ancillary online developments, mobisodes, interactive and
non-linear web narratives, etc.
• Forums, social network groups, virtual communities and
newsletters around specific dramas raise issues which are
particularly useful for more complex theoretical approaches
at A2.
A Varied Diet
Where students new to the subject are unfamiliar with
moving-image analysis, these skills can be introduced in a
variety of different ways to avoid mechanical exercises in
feature-spotting and grammar-type terminology acquisition.
Try:
• varying starting points – e.g. starting with a single still
image, a prediction, a brief role-play, a bit of context or an
issue to debate
• staple ‘reading’ exercises such as playing a brief extract
without sound, or with sound only; counting edits or effects
(aka Technical Events Test); storyboarding a brief synopsis of
action; sequencing or annotating screenshots; re-versioning
extracts for different audiences, etc.
• practical exercises – e.g. re-editing a short sequence;
mash-ups or sweded versions of an extract; reconstructing a
sequence with a digital stills camera.
Card Games
Try re-usable cards which summarise key macro and micro
features required in textual analysis, and key questions
to raise around any extract. These are not definitive, or
substitutes for explanation or classroom exposition, but
aide-memoire-type summaries which can be circulated
around small groups as prompts in relation to any TV drama
example.
Note-Taking Strategies
This ‘grey area’ of moving-image analysis is often neglected,
particularly in terms of unseen extracts, where students need
recall skills to make detailed audio-visual observations and
select appropriate references in relation to key concepts.
Most students benefit from explicit teaching around the use
of mindmaps, spider-diagrams, and visual ways of organising
annotations which help them to make connections, draw
inferences, link to representational ideas, use examples, etc
to incorporate into genuinely analytical rather than simply
descriptive writing.
 Reading TV Drama

An Unseen Extract
Contents
1. Reading TV Drama
1.
Teachers’ Notes
Unseen Viewing

Strategies to prepare for textual analysis.

page 8
page 11

2. Analysing an ‘Unseen’ Drama Extract page 12

A three-part analysis of an extract from Cutting It with a
breakdown of different issues to cover in a written textual
analysis.

3. From Detailed Description to ‘Big Picture’ Analysis page 14

Bullet point notes on the four areas of technical analysis
required for unseen exploration.

4. Doing Analysis via Practical Work page 18

Task 1: Director’s Commentary page 18
Creating a still-image textual analysis with voiceover, using
screenshots, and/or a slideshow program such as PicturePower
3, PowerPoint, Photostory or iMovie.

Task 2: A Sweded Re-make page 19

of the Cutting It Extract
Reconstructing a low-tech version of the Cutting It extract as a
hands-on way into critical analysis.

Task 3: The Text: A Two-Lesson Group page 20

Screenwriting Exercise
Brief screenwriting task around a 60-second scenario in a range
of drama genres.

Resources page 22
Three sets of photocopiable cut-up-able cards, which could be
used throughout the pack in different ways, covering:
A: Macro Analysis – Key TV Drama Questions
B: Micro Analysis – Technical Codes and Conventions
C: TV Drama Genres – Key Features

D: Transcribed Script – Cutting It Extract

E: Series of Screenshots for Cutting It Extract
These screenshots are also available as both a slideshow
on the DVD and as individual jpeg images in the
‘Cutting_It_Assets’ folder.

F: The Contexts, the Cast, the Curlers

Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009 7

 Issue-Based Drama

Criminal Justice
Contents and Teachers’ Notes
2. Issue-Based Drama 1. Before Watching –
Definitions, Mindmaps and Predictions
page 35

• Definitions and associations of the title, and an audit of the

sorts of narratives, themes, characters and issues it suggests.
• Narrative predictions: annotating selected still images for
visual cues as to content and perspective. These are distributed
randomly so that students’ ideas about possible narratives
and identifications are partly influenced by the sequence of
images they receive – a variation on the Kuleshov experiment
in montage editing, which suggested that meanings are
constructed by the viewer on the basis of their own emotional
reactions to the juxtaposition of images.

2. Ben’s Trial: page 38

the ‘Justice’ in Criminal Justice
• The back story to the extracts, and a brief role-play in
which students take on the role of participants in the
courtroom sequences, to analyse the ways their technical and
performance aspects position the central character, Ben, as
guilty or innocent.
• Commentary from Kate Harwood, Controller of Series and
Serials for the BBC and screenwriter Peter Moffat about the
visual construction of these sequences.

3. Interrogating the Evidence page 40

• Close textual analysis of the second courtroom extract, and
the ways in which technical aspects represent both Ben himself
and the legal process.

4. The Other Side of the Story: page 41

the ‘Criminal’ in Criminal Justice
• Students discuss the implication of the legal process on
innocent defendants, and brainstorm media representations of
prison life.
• Analysis of the prison extract, an interview on the
construction of the physical environment, and the
screenwriter’s commentary on the significance of the extract.
• Students review the extract in the light of different aspects
of the text, and make 60-second post-it note presentations to
demonstrate what each feature adds to the representation of
prison life.

5. Crime vs Justice page 43

• Students map the relationship, contrasts and parallels
between courtroom and prison extracts.

Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009 33

 Issue-Based Drama

6. The ‘Talkaboutability’ of Criminal Justice page 43

• Students watch Harwood and Moffat’s analysis of the impact of the serial and
discuss reasons for its controversial public reception, supported by a range of
responses from the legal profession, press, and online forums.

7. A Production Task page 44

• Following a summary by Peter Moffat of the new series of Criminal Justice on which
he was working at the time of the interview, students devise a treatment for the
new series, focusing on a female defendant.

Resources page 45
A: Responses to Criminal Justice
B: Post-Production: Creating a ‘Sound-Scape’ and Colour-grading

34 Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009

 Issue-Based Drama

Issue-Based Drama: Criminal Justice

1. Before Watching
What is Criminal Justice?
1. In pairs, talk about what you understand by the term ‘criminal justice’, then read the
definitions below:
Criminal justice is the branch of law that deals with disputes or actions involving criminal
penalties. It regulates the conduct of individuals, defines crimes and provides punishment
for criminal acts. (www.arwarbukarl.com.au/default.aspx)
Criminal justice n. The system of law enforcement, the bar, the judiciary, corrections, and
probation that is directly involved in the apprehension, prosecution, defense, sentencing,
incarceration, and supervision of those suspected of, or charged with, criminal offenses.
(http://www.answers.com/topic/criminal-justice)
Criminal justice is the system of practices, and organisations, used by national and local
governments, directed at maintaining social control, deterring and controlling crime, and
sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties. When processing the accused
through the criminal justice system, government must keep within the framework of laws
that protect individual rights. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice)

A 3-Minute Mindmap
What does Criminal Justice suggest to you as the title for a TV drama serial?
1. Use your own TV drama expertise and the definitions above to mindmap:
– different ideas and themes suggested by the title
– types of narrative you might expect the serial to deal with
– the sorts of characters, relationships and perspectives you might find in a serial
with this name.

2. Swap your mindmaps to see how your ideas compare, overlap, or differ.

Narrative Predictions: a Visual Card Game

In groups you are going to focus on a series of individual screenshots taken from a drama
entitled Criminal Justice. You will have only two minutes to study and make notes on each
screenshot before passing it on to the next group.
As you study each image, make brief notes on the characters, their relationships and the
themes which seem to you to be represented in the drama. Don’t worry about guessing an
exact storyline but speculate about the possible narratives being developed.
1. Use the visual cues – framing, camera angle, lighting, contrast, etc – to annotate the
image with some immediate ideas about the character(s), the location, and what might
be happening in the narrative.
2. If the image seems familiar – i.e. you recognise a typical location, a character type or
actor, or echoes of another drama you’ve seen – note down the associations it has for
you.
Comparing Your Predictions
3. Share your responses to the images and the ideas they have provoked so far. Talk about
the following:
– the themes, characters and relationships predicted by each group
– whether your predictions were affected by the order in which you encountered
and discussed the images.

Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009 35

 Issue-Based Drama

4. The Other Side of the Story: the ‘Criminal’ in

Criminal Justice
You’ve analysed the representation of ‘Justice’ in Criminal Justice in the courtroom; but that’s
only half the story. When Ben’s not being cross-examined in court, he’s on remand in prison,
treated as a criminal.
Peter Moffat, Writer, Criminal Justice comments:
People forget that you can spend up to 18 months, sometimes as long as 2 years
on remand, waiting for your trial and be acquitted, and there’s nobody giving you
anything back, nobody’s going to say here’s the 2 years that you’ve just missed out on,
no one’s going to give you any money, nobody’s going to restore the things that you’ve
lost. And most importantly, emotionally, mentally, everything that you’ve lost isn’t
going to be returned to you.

1. Before you watch a further clip, do a class brainstorm of images of prison you’ve seen in
TV crime dramas, documentaries, news items, or films, and compile a list of the sorts of
mise-en-scène, locations and characters you might expect to find in Ben’s prison.

The Prison Extract (DVD)

1. Watch the extract focusing particularly on the following issues:
– The character types – Freddie Graham, inmates, the prison officers. How are they
represented in their appearance, behaviour and performance? And how far do
they confirm or challenge your ideas about prisons and prisoners?
– The visual representation of the prison environment – notice particularly the use
of space, lighting and colour tones. (See Resource B on page 50.)
– The use of sound in this sequence – how many different layers of sound do you
notice, and what effect do they create? (Resource B on page 49 provides useful
information on this.)
– The editing of this sequence – camera movement, pace and point of view.

60-Second Presentation (DVD)

1. Now watch the two interviews: The Look of the Prison and The Writer’s Commentary
on the Prison Sequence. Draw on the points made in the following activity.
On page 42 different aspects of the drama have been singled out. These aspects all contribute
to the types of representation constructed in this Prison Extract sequence. They range from
the construction of individual characters to the performance of the actors (for example body
language) to non-verbal sound, and from technical features (for example camera movement
and lighting) to abstract concepts such as justice.
2. Watch the Prison Extract again, this time focusing on the particular aspect that you
have been allocated.
3. On a post-it note, make at least three different points of the ways the aspect you have
been focusing on contributes to the representation of prison life. Illustrate each point
with a specific example from the sequence – e.g. a particular camera shot, line of
dialogue, edit and so on.
4. Use your notes to make a 60-second presentation on this aspect of the drama and the
way it constructs a perspective on prison life.
5. Make your 60-second presentations around the class. As you present, you could
post each one on a noticeboard, so you can make comparisons, draw connections
between them, and see how the different aspects of the drama each contributes to the
representation of prison life.

Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009 41

 Issue-Based Drama

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The character of Prison
Prison Officers
Freddie Graham architecture

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Colour and Non-verbal

Body language
lighting sound

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Camera
Justice Character types
movement

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Framing of shots Point of view Edits and pace

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Casting and
Realism Dialogue
performance

42 Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009

 Issue-Based Drama

5. Crime vs Justice
You’ve now got to grips with two different perspectives on Criminal Justice in two very
different locations. But how do they relate to each other? Do they contrast with each other –
or are there similarities or parallels between them?
1. Try mapping the relationship of the courtroom and prison scenes in the grid below.
We’ve started it off for you.

Contrasts Between Court and Prison Similarities or Parallels Between Court

and Prison

Dark lighting vs pale well-lit Judge // Freddie Graham

environment Jury // Freddie’s gang
Brown colour tones vs cool blue-
grey palette
Rule of law vs ‘street’ justice

6. The ‘Talkaboutability’ of Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice attracted a very strong audience share for BBC1, with over five million viewers
for each episode over five consecutive nights. It also generated huge controversy in the legal
profession, and became a front page news story in its own right.
1. Watch the final DVD clip in which Peter Moffat and Kate Harwood discuss reasons
for the impact of the serial. Make notes about the different features that made it
‘appointment to view’ TV, including:
– the writing process and structure of the serial
– the 5-night scheduling of Criminal Justice
– the role of the BBC iPlayer
– debates about the legal system
– media coverage.

2. Finally, you can read a selection of public responses to Criminal Justice in Resource A.
These include:
– the original letter of complaint from the Chair of the Bar Council published the day
after the first episode was screened
– the Guardian front page news article reporting on the controversy
– an article published in Guardian Society by a former prisoner
– a selection of online responses.

Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009 43

 Issue-Based Drama

7. A Production Task
1. Read the comment below from Peter Moffat.

I’m writing Criminal Justice 2 – the same format, different characters,

completely different story. The main character this time is a woman, and it’s
a completely different sort of crime that she’s alleged to have committed,
but I am very keen to look at a woman’s experience of the criminal justice
system. She has children, and I’m very interested in the family law side of
things, on what happens to children and what Social Services do faced with
the incarceration of these children’s mother. So that’s very interesting and very
different, and great fun, and fascinating. Women’s prisons are really appalling
and, again, I think that’s something that we need to talk about and think about.
I’m not even sure that, in their current form, that they should exist actually.
The majority of women are in prison for offences of non-violence, and the
great majority of them are very damaged people, and prison life isn’t going to
make them better, it is going to make them worse, it is going to damage them
more, is going to make them more likely to re-offend when they come out, is
going to break up families, is going to break down relationships between those
prisoners and their communities and, at the end of the day, is going to produce
more crime.

2. In your group, brainstorm storyline ideas for the new serial, based on Moffat’s concerns.
3. Consider your range of potential characters, the balance between court and prison, and
the narrative techniques you will use to dramatise the issues about women’s experiences
within the legal system.
4. Break your narrative up into five potential episodes, and develop each as a short single-
paragraph treatment.
5. Sum up your pitch in a single sentence.
6. Take it in turns to make your pitch to the class, starting with a one-sentence summary,
and explaining how your serial will unfold.
The second series of Criminal Justice is scheduled for broadcast at the end of 2009. Kate
Harwood says:

What’s sneaky about Criminal Justice is that it gives you a state of the nation
piece that masquerades as a crime drama. A murder takes place in the first
episode, raising a whole different set of questions to the first series.

By spring 2010, you will be able to compare your own pitches with the real thing.

8. Taking it Further
1. Together with the close analysis you’ve done, these case study resources should support
your work on any of the following:
– textual analysis and representation

– the media and democracy

– broadcast fiction

– representations in the media

– text, industry and audience.

44 Doing TV Drama © English & Media Centre, 2009

 Issue-Based Drama

Resource A: Responses to Criminal Justice

A1: The Bar Council – Representing the Legal Profession
The BBC’s Criminal Justice serial is not the basis upon which one can draw any
sound conclusions about our system of justice, as Marcel Berlins points out (June
30). The drama shows barristers acting in breach of their professional obligations. In
episode two a QC encourages a client to provide a false defence to a court – a grave
breach of professional conduct that would be grounds for the barrister to be struck
off. The Bar Council is very concerned at this portrayal of a profession which works
to the highest ethical standards. Peter Moffat, the writer, appears to have missed
the real story. Publicly funded criminal defence practitioners continue to serve the
public in the most difficult circumstances. Even though the system is chronically
underfunded, they act to the highest standards. Counsel’s first duty is to the court
and to the interests of justice. Criminal justice is not a game and it is a travesty to
suggest practitioners see it in that way.
Timothy Dutton QC, Chairman, Bar Council
Guardian letters, 2nd July 2008

A2: The Front Page News Story: The Guardian, 3rd July 2008
If the BBC was hoping its new drama about England’s courts and prisons would ruffle
a few wigs, the corporation can indulge in a leisurely moment of self-congratulation.
Criminal Justice, which charts one young man’s journey through the prison system,
has provoked a terse exchange between the head of the Bar Council and the writer
behind the thriller, which is drawing in almost 5 million viewers.
For the council, Timothy Dutton QC, has taken a dim view of the way barristers in
the programme, particularly in the second episode, are portrayed as underhand,
unprincipled and overly aggressive. The writer, Peter Moffat, says the Bar has to face
the facts. And he’s a trained criminal barrister too.
The exchange has taken place through letters to the Guardian sent in after the start
of the series on Monday. Drawing on one scene, Dutton wrote: ‘The BBC’s Criminal
Justice serial is not the basis upon which one can draw any sound conclusions about
our system of justice.’
He added: ‘Criminal justice is not a game and it is a travesty to suggest practitioners
see it in that way.’
But Moffat disagreed with his learned friend – as he makes plain in a letter in today’s
paper. ‘Timothy Dutton ... seeks to reassure us that defence practitioners ‘act to the
highest standards’,’ he writes. ‘Does this include the barrister disciplined recently for
punching his opponent in court? Or the defence practitioner who sent documentary
‘evidence’ (in fact invented and drafted by himself) from an internet cafe in Oxford
Street to his opponent?’
Like his adversary, Moffat is keen to dispel confusion over his stance. ‘It is,’ he says,
‘about time the Bar faced the fact that like every other profession it has brilliant and
fair-minded practitioners, those of average ability, and the violent, dishonest and
stupid all working within it.’
Although the serial billed itself as ‘a rollercoaster ride through the criminal justice
system ... where the truth is optional and what counts is playing the game in order
to come out on top’, barristers were still put out by a scene which, they felt, unfairly
depicted their world as a sleazy realm where unethical behaviour goes unremarked
and unpunished.
Dutton’s main objection arose from the second episode, in which a QC encourages

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 Issue-Based Drama

a client to provide a false defence to a court. Such behaviour, he wrote in his letter,
represented ‘a grave breach of professional conduct that would be grounds for the
barrister to be struck off’.
He and his fellow barristers were annoyed that the drama had not made it plain that
such an action was unethical.
‘I have had concerns expressed to me because what isn’t brought out in it is the fact
that this is improper conduct,’ he said yesterday afternoon. ‘In a docu-drama, it’s
worth pointing out that this conduct is unethical. Every profession will have people
who misconduct themselves, and if barristers have misconducted themselves, they
would be disciplined.’
Moffat, though, remained unmoved. ‘It is absolutely common practice for
defendants to be prodded towards giving instructions which suit the best available
defence,’ he writes in his letter.
‘We have an adversarial system. By definition we are not after the truth in any
criminal trial. I’m grateful to Timothy Dutton for helping open up debate about
professional ethics. He wants to see things in black and white. At the Bar, just as in
life, standards are all too often a different colour – grey.’ Over to his learned friend:
‘The portrayal of that scene is not a grey area,’ said Dutton. ‘It is clearly unethical.
There’s nothing grey about it.’
Nor could the two agree over perhaps the legal profession’s most pressing concern.
‘[Moffat] appears to have missed the real story,’ Dutton wrote yesterday. ‘Publicly
funded criminal defence practitioners continue to serve the public in the most
difficult circumstances. Even though the system is chronically underfunded, they act
to the highest standards.’
‘Leaving to one side whether this would make for interesting television drama,’
replies the writer, ‘it is certainly true that defence barristers at the junior end are
badly underpaid for the work they do. This is potentially very bad news for ethical
standards.’
Moffat, who practised law for six years, has become one of television’s most sought-
after writers. As well as creating Kavanagh QC, he wrote the short-lived legal drama
set in Leeds, North Square.
But will that pedigree be sufficient to ensure that the nation’s barristers stay tuned to
Criminal Justice?
One, at least, had other plans yesterday. ‘Regrettably, I’m working tonight,’ said
Dutton. ‘But there will certainly be members of the Bar Council watching it.’
Guardian, 3rd July 2008

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 Issue-Based Drama

A3: The Prisoner’s Response

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE
At last, a drama that gets prison life right. Erwin James explains why cons will be
lapping up the BBC’s Criminal Justice
George was a chronic nail-biter in his mid-30s, with dark ginger hair and heavy rings
around his eyes. We were both on remand, in a big London prison. George started
talking to me one morning at the tea urn. ‘Have you seen the shrink yet?’ he asked.
I hadn’t. ‘He hasn’t got a clue,’ he said. Then he pushed his face close to mine and,
firmly tapping his temple, added: ‘Nobody – but nobody – can see in here.’
With often chilling accuracy, BBC1’s new five-part thriller Criminal Justice, which
starts next week, took me right back to the beginning of my own prison journey,
back to those days with nail-biting George and his stale tobacco breath. Like the
show’s main character, Ben Coulter (played by Ben Whishaw), this was my first time
in the adult prison system. Like Coulter, I was afraid, defensive and naïve.
George had been arrested close to the body of a man who had been bludgeoned
to death. Spatters of the man’s blood were found on George’s clothes. ‘I told them
I found him like that,’ George said and winked. ‘Anyway, if I go down, I go down
– fuck ‘em.’ From what I gleaned of him during the time we shared in that fetid
little place, I was certain he was guilty. I was shocked to hear later, on the news,
that George had been cleared. Just as some innocent people end up serving life, I
reminded myself, so some perpetrators go free. And that can mean killers.
Criminal Justice, written by Peter Moffat, offers a similar scenario to George’s, and it
is the most realistic portrayal of life in prison I have ever seen. Coulter is the son of a
cab driver. He lives an ordinary, happy-go-lucky life with mum and dad until he has
one wild night he can’t remember and is arrested near the scene of a murder. The
weapon is found in his pocket, the blood of the young female victim on his clothes.
It’s a done deal as far as the police are concerned.
From what I remember of my time inside, the thriller should go down well among
the prisoner population – the fiercest critics of dramatic renderings of their reality.
We loved Porridge for its mostly accurate portrayal of prison life, albeit without the
violence, and loathed Bad Girls for its over-the-top parodies. But it’s the characters in
Criminal Justice that really struck me.
Remanded in custody, the young ingenue Coulter is lucky: he makes a friend, an
ageing, weary con called Hooch, played by Pete Postlethwaite. In reality, there is a
Hooch on every prison landing in the country, men who have spent the best years of
their lives inside, yet who appear to be undefeated. Appearances can be deceptive,
of course, and nowhere more so than among men in captivity. The mastery of the
psychological arena by such individuals – their absolute pragmatism – renders their
true selves impenetrable, sometimes even to themselves.
But one thing they know for sure is that a prison landing is no easy place. Above all,
what matters there is not how strong or how brave you are, but what sort of deal you
cut to get by. In the world of men like Hooch, compromise reigns supreme. ‘It’s only
the deal that matters here,’ Hooch tells Coulter. ‘Always make the deal, the contract.’
Like everybody who ends up in prison, Coulter is on a journey of sorts. Some days
go his way, others do not. He bleeds a lot, cries a lot, learns a lot – about life and all
its grime, about himself. As Criminal Justice shows, prison has huge value as a setting
for self-discovery ...
Erwin James, Guardian, 26th June 2008
You can read a more detailed response from former prisoner, Erwin James on his blog
(http://www.erwinjames.co.uk/blog/).

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